US companies transformed into 800lb gorilla in bond market
Corporate America is ploughing its excess cash into a wider range of assets
by: Eric Platt, Nicole Bullock and Alexandra Scaggs in New York
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Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft are among a host of top-tier US companies that have become a force in the global bond market, as they pump hundreds of billions of dollars into government and corporate debt.
Thirty US companies together have more than $800bn of fixed-income investments, according to a Financial Times analysis of their most recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Their holdings of Treasuries, corporate, agency and municipal debt, as well as asset- and mortgage-backed securities, means they collectively have more firepower in debt and credit markets than high-profile asset managers including AllianceBernstein, Invesco and Franklin Templeton.
“They are asset managers in their own right,” Ramaswamy Variankaval, head of JPMorgan’s corporate finance advisory group, said of the companies.
A reluctance by American multi-nationals to repatriate profits generated overseas has pushed the size of the US corporate cash piles to more than $2tn, a rise of 50 per cent over the past decade and more than double the levels at the turn of the century, according to the Federal Reserve.
The emergence of US companies as a leading investor in corporate debt alongside traditional asset managers comes at a time many in the market express concern about a bond market bubble that could be vulnerable to bursting should inflation and economic growth accelerate.
Corporate treasurers who have piled into bonds appear to be exacerbating the bond market rally, lowering borrowing costs and convincing companies to issue even more debt while rates are low. That trend could rapidly reverse should inflation return, speeding up a sell-off that would send yields sharply higher.
In total, the 30 companies, which include venerable household names like Ford, Coca-Cola and Boeing, have more than $1.2tn in cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities and investments, according to the FT analysis.
While corporate treasurers typically first turn to a deposit in a commercial bank account or an investment in short-term money market funds and time deposits, they are increasingly extending beyond that sector as interest rates have remained near zero for much of the past decade.
The 30 companies have amassed a portfolio of more than $400bn of US corporate bonds, representing nearly 5 per cent of the outstanding market.
They compete for such debt alongside pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other investors, helping to drive down borrowing costs for corporate America.
Yields on high-quality corporate bonds have tumbled in 2017 to less than 3.1 per cent, the lowest level since last November’s US presidential election.
The willingness to invest in a wider array of fixed-income instruments is also partly a legacy of the financial crisis, when runs on ultra-safe money market funds forced corporate treasurers to pay more attention to how they invest their cash.
“They [the companies] recognise that with all these changes in the marketplace — money market reform, low rates, the evolution of credit risk —, they realise the world is more sophisticated than it was 10 years ago and they can’t simply put money into a money-market account,” said Jerome Schneider, head of Pimco’s short-term and funding desk.
While their effect on capital markets has become more dramatic, companies have taken different approaches to managing their capital. Some, like Apple — which accounts for more than a fifth of the overall cash, cash equivalents and other securities measured by the FT — have built their own teams to manage their capital. Others hire traditional asset managers.
Many have hired “people with sophisticated [financial] backgrounds” to manage these investments”, said Mr Variankaval.
If history shows anything, it’s that both parties share responsibility for boosting the debt. Fighting wars, big tax cuts and economic stimulus packages have all added to the burden over the years.
Here, we’ll take a look at some key moments in the debt’s trajectory until now, and also where it is going.
Obama said the plan would be “a major milestone on our road to recovery,” but Republicans trashed the measure as a waste of government money. Originally scored at $787 billion, the Congressional Budget Office in 2015 put its price tag higher, at $836 billion. Including interest payments, it added $1 trillion to the debt through fiscal 2016, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Last spring, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that if current laws remain the same — that is, if President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress were to do nothing — debt held by the public would rise to 150% of the total economy in 2047 from the 77% it’s at now.
Trump has vowed a few polices that could have a big impact on the debt, including major tax cuts and a military buildup. What’s more, he pledged to leave programs including Medicare and Social Security unchanged. A tax plan Trump proposed during the campaign would add about $7.2 trillion to the debt over a decade, the Tax Policy Center estimated.
On Friday, Trump signed a bill to suspend the debt limit through Dec. 8, enabling the Treasury to borrow more money. The president also said last week he saw “a lot of good reasons” to eliminate the debt ceiling, though that plan would likely meet stiff resistance in the Republican-controlled Congress.